Economic forecasts are wildly unreliable, I have a match box to prove it
When the Peace Tower clock strikes midnight March 31, 2015 the federal budget will be balanced. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty swears it will be so. Will it? Economic forecasts are wildly unreliable. I have a match box to prove it. Tucked inside is the shrewdest investment I ever made—a one ounce wafer of gold. I […]
If Canada’s so conservative, why do so few Canadians vote Conservative? Cue awkward silence
The Prime Minister seated himself under the hot TV lights. With the camera rolling, he contemplated the future. “I’ve often thought that 10 years is the right time to be in a job,” he said. “But we’ll see.” That was Paul Martin speaking on Dec. 19, 2003. He had been Prime Minister less than a […]
Opinion: Canada’s generally a nice, quiet place
It’s a nightmare for PMO media managers. This Thursday will see the release of new crime statistics that’ll reveal—brace yourself—Canada is generally a nice, quiet place. Federal statisticians have been documenting a decline in crime rates for a generation. Good news, yes? But for a government bent on a multi-million-dollar crime crackdown, the annual release […]
Seriously, I now regard the duke and duchess with warm affection
Like you perhaps, I once found the monarchy tiresome—yet now regard dukes and duchesses with warm affection. They are good-humoured in the manner of self-confident people with nothing to prove. They express genuine interest in ordinary, homey, Canadian things. They never over-compensate since their qualifications are not in dispute. These real aristocrats are our salvation […]
A sad, but unconfirmed account of a human casualty of Canada Post lockout
It was a sad, even pitiful account of a human casualty of the Canada Post lockout. The Labour Department identified a kindergartener unable to attend class because her eyeglasses never arrived by mail. Conservative MP Kellie Leitch touchingly recounted the tale, embellishing it with intimate details. The victim was a little girl aged six who […]
Giorno’s take on ’38 days that shaped history’
The luncheon crowd gathered at the InterContinental Hotel in Toronto to hear a war roomer’s speech. Listeners were keen, even animated. This was going to be good. The guest that day was Guy Giorno, Conservative campaign chair and ex-chief of staff to the Prime Minister. War roomers dress like patent lawyers and talk like frat-boys, […]
Did vote mobs work?
It was the one new, interesting feature of the Election of 2011—”a flash phenomenon storming campuses,” CTV called it. It was the spectre of “vote mobs” fuelled by a media campaign to raise turnout by Canada’s youngest electors. But did it work? The question draws a good-hearted laugh from Vancouver’s Jamie Biggar, co-founder of Leadnow.ca. […]
Question Period’s all the people have, it should be passionate
Question Period was over and a Cabinet minister told a reporter, “Pretty quiet in there.” No heckling, no backtalk, no unruly protest. “A good start,” he called it. In the House the minister of labour spent much of Question Period filing her nails and chewing ice cubes. The country is in the grips of a […]
PM gains best chance to settle old scores with election of a new Speaker, candidate more to his liking
The tone of Parliament’s new term will be set in mere minutes. If Stephen Harper leans to ruthless advantage-seeking—a “sweaterless hardballer,” The Edmonton Journal once called him—it will show in the selection of a new Speaker of the House of Commons. A formality in the distant past, the June 2 vote by MPs is now […]
Prime Minister Harper and the Cabinet nobody knows
It is the Cabinet nobody knows. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty smokes cigars and once proposed criminalizing homelessness. Attorney General Rob Nicholson has complained to his wife he can’t stand CBC docudramas that denigrate “things all Canadians feel good about.” Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is so devout a Catholic he remained celibate at 31, prompting a […]
